Iraqi sect struggles in America

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By David Grant ASSOCIATED PRESS

FERNDALE, Mich. | When the bride and groom arrive at the Mandaean Association, the Middle Eastern salad is ready and flower petals are lightly strewn across the floor.

For these Iraqis who follow the teachings of John the Baptist, weddings are an opportunity for the small community to come together as believers try to preserve their heritage far away from their ancestral homeland.

As young and old dance to American and Arabic songs inside the suburban Detroit mandi, the Mandaean house of worship, a dozen young Mandaean-Americans getting fresh air outside reflect on their role in Mandaean society: This crew of cousins is the "next generation." Their parents and grandparents believe they will determine whether the Mandaean faith lives or dies in the United States.

"Being first generation is going to be the hardest," said Eva Majdob Rojas, 26, of Monroe. "We have to either stick to those really old traditions or break the ice as individuals and get our parents to understand that."

After more than 2,000 years of practicing their Gnostic faith almost entirely in Iraq and Iran, some Mandaean-Americans fear their ancient beliefs may fade in the U.S. unless they can agree on a cultural course that keeps traditions intact while dealing with the pressures of American society.

The world's roughly 60,000 Mandaeans have been coming to the United States in small numbers for several decades. Surges occurred at the outbreak of the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s, after the Gulf War in the early 1990s and after the 2006 bombing of Iraq's al-Askari Mosque, which set off sectarian violence.

Now, an estimated quarter of the population is in refugee camps in Jordan and Syria, while 10,000 remain split between Iran and Iraq. The remainder are scattered from San Antonio to Sydney. Several thousand are thought to live in the U.S., according to Mandaean-American leaders, but no formal totals are kept.

Members of Mandaean organizations from across the globe were to convene in Stockholm the first week of July to discuss ways to keep their religion alive in the diaspora.

One of the focuses of the conference was going to be language. Linguistically, the Iraqi community has all but lost its connection to the spoken Aramaic dialect of its Mandaean forefathers.

Charles Haberl, director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University, said that although Arabic and German translations of Mandaean holy scripture are available, the young Mandaean-American community is cut off from its texts because most cannot read Iraqi Arabic even though they speak it.